I started a tradition last year that each time I go to the airport to pick someone up or drop them off, I take a picture of the pillar in the parking lot and post it, like this shot here. But today as I was doing this, the person I was dropping off suggested I take her picture by the pillar. What a good idea! A new tradition starts.

I have been away for a week with the photoblog running on autopilot and I came back with nice happy photos to post, but today I post this one from my trip instead which I think conveys beauty and peace.

This shot is for a regular UK visitor of this blog P. Sadly P passed away yesterday age 81 years old. I met P when I was a teenager some 40-years ago and he has been a longtime friend, mentor and father figure to me, and he has been the same for many in my family too. P was a fellow photographer but most of all one of he was one of the kindest people I have ever known.

This shot is for you P, and even though you have left us, I am sure you will still see all the family photos photos from where you are…

I took this shot in a museum in Rome, so that makes this Venus; if she was shot in Greece she would be Aphrodite. In either place and by any name she wins similar admiration. A bit like that old saying about the rose I guess.

More pictures from the Italian series coming soon, but in the mean time, yesterday I got to take a picture in-between “field visits” I was doing in Hamilton. Here it is – the Maritime Trader. If you have been checking my blog for a while you know I like ships and sailing. This summer though, no sailing for me, having sold the boat I am back to being a landlubber who just dreams of the sea, and other places.

This is a shot from Italy taken a couple of years ago. I posted a similar shot some time ago but recently I have been so busy I have had no chance to get out and shoot. So the only thing to do it to look in the archives for moments I remember, and places that I hope someday to go back to.

As most of you have realized by now the last post was an April Fool’s day joke.

The moon picture was quite real though and I show the original photo above – it was taken a couple of weeks ago on a night with a particularly bright moon. The shot was handheld (no tripod) so I was quite pleased with the results. The weather balloon story and sending the Nikon into space though was pure fiction, and I photo shopped an earth picture in for effect, in the hope of making you all smile on April 1st.

Seeing though the Nikon D3100 is so light I had an idea. I brought a weather balloon and filled it with helium. I tied the camera to the balloon and then let it go into the air at night with a long string attached to the balloon. Once the balloon was as high as it would go, I used my Nikon wireless remote to fire off a few random shots. Most of the shots did not turn out but a few did, including this one. Nice eh!